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Tuesday, 19 December 2017

Australian Masters 2017 - Part 10

Part 10 is the last one of the series dedicated to Australian Masters 2017 and I would like to conclude with a collection of summaries, observations and simply share some general experiences.

It was great to be able to qualify and participate in that unique event. Many thanks to KenF for organizing the event, Good Games Ipswich for hosting us and for the great gifts and to all people who were one way or another involved in making this tournament happen!

I feel privileged and honored that I made it thus far and I hope that Australian Masters will get more and more popular in the future!

I would like to start with the results of course! After all, we all competed to be the best of the best and I think it is a good idea to begin with a bit of a presentation of each players achievements.

Results

1. Jeff - Dwarfs

Jeff was defending his title from the Masters last year and he succeeded! Well done indeed and congratulations once again for a fantastic achievement!

Jeff defeated all his opponents with clear 4/0/0 score:

Round 1 - win against Josh in the army swap

Round 2 - win against Chris and Kingdoms of Men

Round 3 - win against Evan and Abyssal Dwarfs

Round 4 - win against Andrew and Abyssal Dwarfs

Looks like there were quite a few Dwarfs vs Dwarfs fights there!

2. Clint - Goblins

I am sure many would bet on Clint to win the event and rightly so, after all he is the first ranked player at the moment. He fought hard during the event and ended it with 3 victories and 1 defeat:

Round 1 - win against Ed in the army swap

Round 2 - loss against Evan and Abyssal Dwarfs

Round 3 - win against Dru and Ratkin

Round 4 - win against KenF and Varangur

3. Dru - Ratkin

Dru proudly represented ACT and thanks to his efforts the podium had a player from three different places! He also ended up with 3 victories and what made a difference between 2nd and 3rd place was attrition!

Round 1 - win against Andrew in the army swap

Round 2 - win against KenF and Varangur

Round 3 - loss against Clint and Goblins

Round 4 - win against Evan and Abyssal Dwarfs

4. Evan - Abyssal Dwarfs

Evan started strong by winning his first two games but two close defeats in the game 3 and 4 meant he just missed the podium!

Round 1 - win against Adam in the army swap

Round 2 - win against Clint and Goblins

Round 3 - loss against Jeff and Dwarfs

Round 4 - loss against Dru and Ratkin

5. Andrew - Abyssal Dwarfs

There were three factions that were represented by two armies and out of them all Abyssal Dwarfs did the best. It is also thanks to a very good performance of Andrew who like Evan had 2 victories and 2 defeats during the event:

Round 1 - loss against Dru in the army swap

Round 2 - win against Pawel and Elves

Round 3 - win against Chris and KoM

Round 4 - loss against Jeff and Dwarfs

6. Chris - Kingdoms of Men

Chris was the only player who employed allies in his army and the second best from Queensland after Clint. Chris also finished with 2 victories and 2 defeats result:

Round 1 - win against Ken "Chaaarge" in the army swap

Round 2 - loss against Jeff and Dwarfs

Round 3 - loss against Andrew and Abyssal Dwarfs

Round 4 - win vs Ed and League of Rhordia

7. KenF - Varangur

Ken had a huge responsibility on his shoulders as he was a playing TO and had to quickly put results of each turn and then make sure everything run smoothly during the rounds. Fortunately, there were no problems that required his immediate attention but nonetheless, many thanks for preparing the event and running it!

Ken had 2 victories and 2 defeats during the tournament:

Round 1 - win against Pawel in the army swap

Round 2 - loss against Dru and Ratkin

Round 3 - win against Ed and League of Rhordia

Round 4 - loss against Clint and Goblins

8. Josh - Undead

Josh had a tough start to play against Jeff in round one and he also lost his second game. However, he enthusiastically kept fighting back and finished strong with 2 victories!

Round 1 - loss against Jeff in the army swap

Round 2 - loss against Ed and League of Rhordia

Round 3 - win against Adam and Undead

Round 4 - win against Ken "Chaarge" and Varangur

9. Ken "Chaaarge" - Varangur

Ken brought the army that made him famous and during the event he also had to compete in the "best Ken" competition. This time KenF got better but I am sure this sport rivalry will continue!

Ken had 2 ties and 2 defeats in the event:

Round 1 - loss against Chris in the army swap

Round 2 - tie against Adam with Undead

Round 3 - tie against Pawel with Elves

Round 4 - loss against Josh and Undead

10. Adam - Undead

Adam had another all mounted army to play with and he finished the day with 1 victory, 1 tie and 2 defeats:

Round 1 - loss against Evan in the army swap

Round 2 - tie against Ken and Varangur

Round 3 - loss against Josh and Undead

Round 4 - win against Pawel and Elves

11. Ed - League of Rhordia

Ed also played heavily mounted army but unlike Ken or Adam he also added some artillery support. Ed finished the tournament with 1 victory and 3 defeats:

Round 1 - loss against Clint int the army swap

Round 2 - win against Josh and Undead

Round 3 - loss against KenF and Varangur

Round 4 - loss against Chris and Kingdoms of Men

12. Pawel - Elves

And the last player was yours truly! After 4 games I had 3 defeats and 1 tie and was the only player without even a single victory!

Round 1 - loss against Ken in the army swap

Round 2 - loss against Andrew and Abyssal Dwarfs

Round 3 - loss against Ken and Varangur

Round 4 - loss against Adam and Undead

If you want to check the exact result of each round and/or particular battle, you may follow the link to the tournament software we used for keeping track of the scores:

I would like to thank Good Games Ipswich for providing excellent conditions to play the games! I believe the terrain was also supplied by some of the players too so thanks for that as well! It was definitely great to play in cozy conditions, with enough space around the tables and with AC on :)

We used maps designed by EpicDwarf although as you can see on the pictures the dimensions of the particular pieces of the terrain may have varied.

Player's Pack

In general, the player's pack was pretty straightforward and players took it on board quickly. I think the only question raised was a clarification for terrain and that was also smoothly sorted out.

The only aspect I would like to focus on is the scoring system which was assymmetric. It means that the final score was altered differently, depending if the winning player (i.e. the one who won on scenario conditions) had a positive or negative attrition difference in comparison to his opponent.

I would like to illustrate it with an example:

Player A scores 501 more points on attrition in each game than his opponents. However, in 3 games he loses on scenario and in 1 wins on scenario. It means that due to the scoring system his 3 losses end in 9:11 result and his only victory translates to 17:3 result. In total, he earns 44 points.

Player B scores 501 less points on attrition in each game than his opponents. He also wins all of them on scenario. Due to modifications his result from each game is 11:9 and in four games he earns 44 points total, exactly the same as player A.

However, Player A will have a significantly better score on attrition points and will end up higher in the overall standings than Player B.

I don't think that the system that allows a player who actually loses 3 games and wins only 1 to place higher than the player who won all 4 is a good one.

I believe that next year it would be better to come up with a different system, possibly use whatever is officially suggest in the CoK 2018 supplement that is going to be released at the beginning of the 2018.

General Feedback

In general, I think the event was great and the only thing I would like to see improved in the future is the publicity and coverage aspect of the tournament. A lot of players who did not qualify hoped for some news and photos from the games on the day. However, while normally I have just enough time to post a deployment picture on tweeter, this time I had none! I would not expect players to take and post pictures on social media during the event anyway.

However, I wonder if for the future events we could not ask one of the local players (wherever the Masters are going to be organized next) to simply cruise around the tables and discretely take some photos. And post them either in a dedicated forum topic or tweet them with a dedicated hashtag etc.

I think it would have been fantastic to do it and would advertise the event to more players too. I hope that one day the Masters would be the event that crowns the season and that players aspire to qualify to as soon as the new season begins. That they would talk about it all year, either in the context of the games played or about the armies that are being represented in the upcoming edition.

I am sure such publicity would also help growing the hobby further and attracting more people to the system. After all, a lot of us likes watching sports on TV even if many of us are not professional athletes. :)

Outcasts - (Under)Performance

Before I continue to personal gaming experiences I would like to thank my opponents: KenF, Andrew, KenD and Adam for fantastic games! All of them were played in great spirit and all my opponents expressed great sportsmanship. It is amazing because it is not easy to control emotions when so much is at stake and that every single mistake may be crucial.

I would also like to thank my sparring partners: Ed, Eastern Barbarian and Michael aka Darth Sabre, who found time to help me with preparation to the event. I greatly appreciate your efforts and I am really sorry I didn't perform well to honor you properly.

I will not deny that getting a Wooden Spoon award for the first time and during such a prestigious event was tough. I was very happy to qualify and wanted to represent Elves and local group of fantastic players from Canberra as best as I could. Unfortunately, I did not win a single game.

I did expect that game wise, every single mistake will be exploited by the opponents and it was harsh but valuable lesson. I really appreciate that my opponents were very understanding too and I apologize if sometimes I may not have the most happy face.

However, when I looked back at the games I played I clearly identified many mistakes I made. And that gives me hope for the future as there is plenty for me to learn. I actually knew that before the games, I just hoped I would be more demanding opponent.

I also think that the amount of mistakes I made was a bit higher and I wonder why was that so. During the games I didn't feel any pressure but maybe that was just my conscious mind, hard to say what goes in the background! I definitely think that if I were to improve and play better with significantly less mistakes I would have had a chance to win my games. Always blame the general, never the army :)

That is why I don't quite intend to change my army list at the moment. It was never my way, the fact I managed to qualify is due to that approach. I learned from previous games and practiced with the similar army. It does not mean there will be no changes at all. I am already looking forward to reading new updates in the CoK 2018 supplement. But I would like to continue playing with more or less the same army as I would be able to progress with the painting and modelling and hopefully discover new ways of playing and winning the games.

The new season is on so I better plan how to attend future tournaments so that I can qualify for Australian Masters again!

Many thanks for reading the blog posts about Australian Masters 2017! I really enjoyed writing about the event and my involvement in it. I had great games and I hope you enjoyed reading about them.

If you have any feedback about any of the posts, please, let me know! I would love to take your suggestions on board and make sure the future posts are even better.

4 comments:

Well sounds like you had a fun but tough time. I understand that well. I have played 3 tournaments trying msu elves and have out of 11 games won zero tied 3 and lost 7. With 2 last place finiahes and one second to last place. You however have played many games and qualified for the masters!

I want to give you the most hobir i can for saying you will not change your list. Playing msu i have found that i have not been able to come up with an answer for big def 5 hordes. I attack but just cant seem to get any units killed and the counterattacks really hurt. But with less than 20 games i have hope. Do you think the answer is more palace guard and drakons and less ahooting? I dunno. I have been really bummed out but you give me hope. Getting to masfers with msu is awesome and inam very proud of you. We all make silly mistakes in the heat if the moment but making mistakes with msu seems more costly in my opinion. I will continue to follow your progress and wish you the best. Msu is addicitive but its very hard to play and master. I think armies do matter and that some are more forgiving for mistakes than others. Msu is tough to play and your games showed me that even when things go according to plan with msu you can end up with a loss. Sorry for a long pist but i enjoy your take on your peformance and the spirut you have in loaing with dignity. My last event i was not a good loser but will work on that for the future!

It was indeed a great time and I am very happy I could make it to the Masters. I know it is tough to finish last. I have personal experience now and I have even more respect for the players who keep coming back and learn from it.

But I know it can get better. I will have one year to prove it! :)

I also appreciate your kind words! I had successes with MSU army and I think I lost my games in a huge part due to my own mistakes. My opponents were all very good (Master players all!) so one should have expected that they would use any opportunity to gain advantage. However, if I can play better, make less mistakes, I should at least provide them with a tougher challenge!

I would like to highlight one fact. I may have 70+ games but I also think it is not much yet. Why? Well, if you consider a fact there are 20+ factions and 12 scenarios it means that in order to play each faction in each scenario once you would need to play 240+ games! And that is not counting allies or other factors.

It is amazing that KoW can offer such a variety and I am much more optimistic about the future games and events that I was immediately after the Masters. There is still so much to learn!

Thank you for your comment on my sportsmanship and taking the losses with good spirit. It was always my aim. Nobody likes losing but I didn't want to take anything from the well deserved victories of my opponents. I do hope they didn't mind my sad face sometimes :D